Some People Smell Roses
Some people smell roses when death approaches. For me, it’s a stench.
I was sitting at the airport with my boyfriend Jay, waiting to fly to Lanzarote for a week’s holiday. I’d known him for about six months and it was a leap of faith going with him at this point in our relationship. He was tall, dark, very good looking. Jay never passed a shop window without checking his appearance. He believed in equality of the sexes unlike some guys I’ve met. He was always happy to let me pay my way.
I suppose I was using this as a test to see whether our relationship had any future. Would we get on ok on holiday? How would he cope with the tedium of waiting for the plane? He sat there, frowning at the noisy, blond toddler playing planes, zooming around near our seats.
I smelled a nauseating odour at the crowded gate, where we would be shortly departing. It was so bad I had to rush past the curious, staring faces to the Ladies to throw up. I knelt on the floor, gasping, retching, and clutched the cold white ceramic toilet bowl. I remembered this stink from before.
The above is from Harvey Duckman Presents Volume 8 (the famous “No Dragons” issue). You can read the rest of Liz Tuckwell’s Some People Smell Roses along with several other amazing stories between its captivating covers (and we both hope you do!)
Find Liz Tuckwell online at Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Goodreads, Instagram, Amazon, and her website.
Have you been Harveyed?
The kind, wise, and wonderful folks at Sixth Element Publishing included four of my flash pieces in Harvey Duckman Presents Volume 8 and I’m repaying that kindness by showcasing the opening from each author’s work for the next few weeks.
Read
- Day 1’s Adrian Bagley’s “The Beast at Bay”.
- Day 2’s Alex Minns’s “Sides of the Mirror”
- Day 3’s Alexandrina Brant’s “Cartography, Creatures, & Craquelin (A Melina Short)”
- Day 4’s Bruce Connelly’s “Hare Today, Gone…?”
- Day 5’s Christine King’s “The Child, The Witch, and The Werewolf”
- Day 6’s Crysta Coburn’s “Smoke”
- Day 7’s Davia Sack’s “The Curse of Beauty”
- Day 8’s Muriel “iPad” Blytheman’s “Ye Olde Ship Inn”
- Day 9’s Jack Pentire’s “Time will say Nothing”
- Day 10’s Me! Four Flash Pieces
- Day 11’s Kate Baucherel’s “Firebird”
Next up, a taste of Mark Hayes’s Mandrake.
Enjoy!
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